Hacker News Reader

Comment by kayxspre | Hacker News Reader

And now I wish Thai producers step in and market the true Sriracha sauce. For context, Sriracha is a name of a district in Thailand. As it is classified as geographical name, it cannot be registered as a trademark on its own in both Thailand and USA (it can be used with other elements, such as logo, like what Huy Fong did, combining it with Chicken logo)

View on HN

...it's just plain hot sauce unless it's from the Sriracha district in Thailand. Maybe the jokes were onto something after all.

But this might be good PR too - maybe the famous foods are famous for a reason. Good way to discover things to try tasting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t...

IIRC there is no true Sriracha. It was first marketed by a thai guy using an old family recipe with Californian ingredients but it was never trademarked so there are plenty of similar hot sauces with the same name

This is correct to my understanding too. It would be like trademarking 'Carolina BBQ Sauce'

is this trademarked carolina bbq sauce vinegar based, or mustard based?

Here in the UK the Thai-manufactuered Flying Goose brand is widely available and incredibly delicious. Much better tasting than the Californian brand IMO.

I find most of the Thai brands to be too sweet. I prefer the Huy Fong as it has less sugar (I tried to compare the nutrition facts but the Huy Fong one is a bit BS).

However I find most Asian products in the UK always seem to have crazy amounts of sugar in them which I'm not a huge fan of.

> the Huy Fong one is a bit BS

If you look at nutrition facts for larger containers it's about 9% sugar by weight.

(It starts out higher in sugar, but some of that is consumed during fermentation.)

Nice find! Yep I read about fermentation as well. I'm neither a huge fan of sweet or vinegary hot sauces so I usually find Sriracha or Mexican hot sauces (eg. El Yucateco) as my go to's.

El Yucateco kutbil-ik xxx hot sauce is my number one. it's so damn hot, and the flavor is unmatched. the black special reserve one is next level too. at this point my cellular makeup is roughly 20% habanero because of them.

Huy Fong makes a garlic chili sauce, which appears to be Sriracha, but without any sugar at all. I think the garlic chili sauce comes off the same line, but gets bottled before the sugar is added.

Their chili garlic sauce is not pureed. Otherwise, yes, it's their sriracha without the sugar.

I have a foodservice jar of the stuff. I'll run out by 2030 or so.

The Flying Goose brand is the most common here in Germany. The Huy Fong brand hasn't been available for a few years after the EU implemented some restriction on one of the ingredients.

It's also the only acceptable. I've tried every available other 'knock-off', too. They were bad. No matter if green, or red capped. I guess they were too old, and have gone bad on the shelf. Realized that much later, when I had a small, almost empty bottle of the Flying Goose stuff, and the last of it tasted bad the same way the others did. Also smell, nothing strong, but noticable, once you know it. I don't know how to put this exactly. An 'empty' sting? Feeling hot and sharp, without being spicy? More like tear-gas? Just numbing without taste?

> The Huy Fong brand hasn't been available for a few years after the EU implemented some restriction on one of the ingredients.

My fride, my pantry and my local Asian shops would respectfully disagree with that statement.

Hui Fong Sriracha is less sweet, less garlicky, brighter and the chillies come out way more. It's not the same product as the Flying Goose brand and they certainly can't be substituted for each other. I love 'em both.

> For context, Sriracha is a name of a district in Thailand. As it is classified as geographical name, it cannot be registered as a trademark on its own in both Thailand and USA

Weird. Literally hundreds of food items across the EU are trademarked by their origin. Brie de Meaux can only come from Meaux with cow milk from Meaux-inhabiting calls. Same goes for Coulommiers ( a type of cheese that has to come from the village of Coulommiers), Parmigianino Regiano, Gouda, Edam, Gruyère, Gorgonzola, etc. etc. etc.

I would not expect that any of them are trademarked either, which is what the parent post is referring to. IGP and DOP are not copyright/trademarks, as far as I understand anyway; they are EU food origin laws which don't apply elsewhere.

Those are not trademarked. Anyone can make them as long as they follow the rules (including origin).

At least that's what Thailand's IP Authority explained to the public. Many Thai people are outraged of what they saw as a "ripoff" of sauce (purportedly) made in Sriracha, but marketed by foreign companies. The authority did suggest a geographical indicator (GI) as a way to market it as genuinely coming from Sriracha, but AFAIK, there hasn't been a proof about the distinctive property of sauce from Sriracha, so it hasn't yet been recognized as a GI.

The Huy Fong brand though is so widely available in the US. I have even seen it in multiple sections of the grocery store.

Even if not the true Sriracha sauce, there is no way to displace the rooster in the US. I love the Huy Fong brand, at this point the true sauces will just taste different to me. It is basically impossible for them to taste "better" than Huy Fong to me. Maybe this would be different if starting from zero and no expectations but that is not the case.

The shortage will just make the Huy Fong fans want it more in the US.

It's not a chicken . It's a rooster

Roosters are chickens. A chicken is a domestic fowl.

Are you confusing with hens? Both roosters and hens are chickens, but hens aren't roosters.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-differences-between-a-chi...

The parent was correct, a rooster is a chicken. An adult male chicken.

As a kid we had a neighborhood guy named Henry Schuster. We used to say "It takes a Schuster to be a rooster, but it takes a Henry to be a chicken." I don't know what side this puts me on.

*Rooster logo

Reply on news.ycombinator.com